


Amid Planets, Her Slaves

by siophiefandom



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F, McHastings - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siophiefandom/pseuds/siophiefandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer and Paige at Stanford. This is pretty much based on PLL, before all of the Dollhouse nonsense. There's no explicit mention of A, but, if you want to believe that A exists in this universe, you're free to infer her. It's probably a one-shot. Rated T for some adult language and behavior. McHastings</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Amid Planets, Her Slaves

Paige stared down at the phone in her hand, delaying the inevitable. She didn't recognize the number, but, since it was from Rosewood's area code, she knew who was calling. She could have let it go to voice-mail, but she knew that they would have told talk, eventually. With a long sigh, she tapped the "Talk" icon.

"Hastings," she said flatly.

"McCullers," she heard in reply.

They had lapsed back into the way that they greeted each other when their paths crossed back in their field hockey days. Respectful disdain. This was before Paige and Spencer became friends. Friends of a friend. Before there was Paige and Emily.

_Emily_. Paige wondered how Spencer would get her number. She knew that it would have to come from Emily. It had to have been an awkward conversation.

"So," Paige said, with no hint of rancor.

"So," Spencer echoed. "You know why I'm calling."

Paige did. She knew that the call was going to come. It was only a question of when.

When Stanford's field hockey coach began recruiting a prospect from Rosewood High, she got in touch with Paige right away. Even though Paige was no longer playing field hockey at the time she finished Rosewood, the coach knew that, in such a small town, Paige would know anyone who was on the team well enough to give her an assessment. And Paige gave an honest assessment - as honest as she could be without betraying Spencer's trust, or Emily's. She could only offer a guess as to why Penn turned Spencer down, but she made it known in no uncertain terms: It was the University of Pennsylvania's loss.

It came as no surprise to Paige when her own swimming coach mentioned, off hand, that Spencer had accepted Stanford's offer.

"Yeah," Paige replied. She knew why Spencer had called. "When are you flying in?"

"Next week. Tuesday."

"You can't get into the dorms next week."

"Yeah."

The two were so alike that they didn't need many words between them.

"I'll talk to my parents," Paige said matter-of-factly, "but I'm sure that it'll be okay."

Whatever Spencer's feelings for Paige at that moment, they were going to be classmates at Stanford. They would have to learn to get along. Spencer was never one to delay the unpleasant. She just plowed ahead.

* * *

Paige met Spencer in baggage claim with a respectful nod, which Spencer returned. There were no hugs, and no words, really. Spencer gestured to her bags as they came off the carousel, and Paige helped her hoist them onto the cart. Paige gestured in the direction of the parking lot and steered the cart to her car.

The silence made the ride feel longer. There was a lot to talk about, but they had too much respect for each other to get into it in the car.

Paige pulled into the driveway of the California house. It was way too big for the three of them, but it sent the right message.

Of course, there was a pool in the back.

Spencer took note of the two twenty dollar bills on the counter next to a note that read, "Welcome Spencer." The bills meant that Nick and Elaine wouldn't be home for dinner. Had it been any other girl, Paige would have gotten a lecture about focusing, avoiding distractions, and making good choices before her parents left them home alone. But they knew Spencer. She was focused. She was driven.

Most important, she was straight.

* * *

Paige helped Spencer carry her bags to one of the spare rooms in the rear of the single-level house and let her get settled in. She was waiting at the kitchen counter with twin bottles of water and some chips and dip when Spencer came in, having splashed some water on her face to freshen up.

"So," Spencer said, twisting open the bottle in front of the stool on which she had planted herself.

Paige was leaning with one forearm planted on the counter, twirling the same chip back and forth through the glob of guacamole on her plate with her other arm.

"So," she echoed, without looking up.

"You really hurt her, you know," Spencer rasped, not hiding her anger.

"I know," Paige affirmed, still focused on her plate.

"Is that all that you have to say?"

Paige let out a deep sigh and, finally, looked in Spencer's eyes. "What do you want me to say, Spencer?"

"I'd like an explanation, Paige. We _all_ would. Don't you think that you owe her that? I mean, whatever Emily ever did to you, you always knew _why_. It was never just, 'I need space.'" Spencer dripped contempt as she lowered her voice to pronounce the words which Paige had spoken to Emily.

Paige opened her mouth to speak, but, before she could, Spencer added, "You wounded her, Paige."

"I know. I know!" Paige's voice broke as she fought to keep her composure. "And that was one of the hardest things that I ever had to do." Spencer scoffed, despite herself. She wanted to give Paige a fair hearing. She certainly didn't want Paige to cop an attitude and just shut down.

"But it had to be done," Paige concluded, with a shrug.

Spencer raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"Emily... Emily is a force of nature. She's like the Sun. Women are just drawn to her like planets." Paige was idly using her hands to depict planets orbiting around the Sun. "And, when I got out here, it was as if I got out of her gravitational pull. Don't get me wrong. I never stopped loving her. But it was just as if, with some perspective, I could see what was going on. I mean, Emily is always going to have women orbiting around her. And she always seems to come back to me, for whatever reason. I just - I just realized that she needed to be free to explore whatever - _whoever_ \- is out there. You know the saying. If you love someone, set her free. I just have to hope that she comes back to me, when all the dust settles."

"Paige, that's just..." _Insane_ , Spencer was about to say.

"Is it?" Paige cut her off. "I mean, it didn't take long for Talia to slip into her orbit."

Spencer recoiled a little, surprised that Paige knew about Talia. That wasn't one of Emily's finer moments, and she didn't exactly trumpet the news, even to her three best friends. "And Sara," Spencer whispered, not realizing that she had actually spoken the name out loud until she saw Paige do a slight double-take. In a moment of compassion, Spencer reached for Paige's forearm. She hadn't meant to break the news like that.

"Sara," Paige repeated pensively. She had been caught off guard, but she couldn't say that she was surprised. "And, I'm guessing, Sara is a blonde."

"Wow - really?"

"Am I right?"

"Yeah, but..."

Paige smiled, for perhaps the first time since Spencer had been in California. "It's the pattern, Spencer. Predictable. Repeatable. 'Blonde, brunette, brunette. Blonde, brunette, brunette.'" Paige rattled off.

Spencer curled her lip as she took mental inventory. Paige watched her as she processed: Alison. Maya. Paige. Samara. Maya. Paige. Alison. Paige. Talia. Sara.

She shook her head at Paige's depth of analysis of all things Emily before she got back to the point. "So, why didn't you just discuss it with Emily? Like an adult?"

"You know me - 'Right thing, wrong way McCullers.'" Paige smiled, but Spencer rolled her eyes.

"Don't you think you _owe_ her at least that much?"

"Yes. Of course. I know that I do. But you don't understand Emily's pull, Spencer. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to walk away from her at the airport. If she asked me to stay again, I know that I would have said yes. And we'd just be back to the same old cycle."

Spencer finally relaxed her posture. She didn't understand fully, but she knew, at least, that Paige had a reason. And that, as always, Paige had only hurt Emily because she was trying to look out for her.

"And, besides. You know how it works. I knew that, eventually, Emily would find out why," Paige smirked.

Spencer dropped some chips onto her plate. Yes, she knew how it worked. Emily hadn't asked her to get an explanation from Paige, but Paige was imploring her to give Emily one. "She says hi," Spencer said, looking down at her plate as she finally got around to delivering the message that Emily had asked her to relay. The first message, rather. There were others, but they would have to wait.

"So, Toby?" Paige asked after a respectable pause.

Spencer looked up, shaking the hair away from her face with a quick swish. "We're good," she affirmed.

"And the distance?"

Spencer shrugged. "We've survived worse."

"I suppose you have," Paige said, focusing anew on her snack.

* * *

The two saw surprisingly little of each other as the year unfolded. There was no animus between them, or any conscious decision on the part of either one to avoid the other. Stanford was a larger pond than Rosewood High, and they each had their own circles of association, formed around their separate sports and courses of study. Paige gave Spencer rides on those rare occasions when she needed one, until Peter Hastings was able to come through with a local set of wheels. Spencer was an occasional guest at the McCullerses' dinner table. It was a given that she would join them for Thanksgiving weekend, since she couldn't go home.

But when it came to campus life - study breaks, movies, or hanging out in the dorms - they were in two separate worlds.

* * *

Paige hoisted her head off of the pillow when she heard the insistent knocking on her door. Her first glance was to the clock. It was almost one o'clock. Her second glance was to her roommate's bed, which was empty. It wasn't unusual for Katie to find someone else's bed in which to spend her Friday night. What was unusual was for her to come back. Paige assumed that she didn't have her key - or didn't have the coordination to use it.

She opened the door and was immediately engulfed in a hug by Spencer Hastings. As soon as they made contact, Spencer broke, dissolving into deep sobs. Paige shuffled her inside the room and closed the door, correctly thinking that Spencer wouldn't want an audience for what she was going through.

They ended up sitting on Paige's bed. Paige comfortingly smoothed the hair on the side of Spencers face, which was buried in Paige's shoulder as Spencer cried and cried.

Paige waited, allowing Spencer to decide when she was ready to break the silence.

"It's over," Spencer said, looking up at Paige. Paige just held her tighter, rubbing her back. "It was too much," she said, separating their bodies. She sat up, facing forward, with her hands clasped between her thighs. Without realizing it, Paige mirrored the pose. "Four years is a long time. Three thousand miles is a long way."

Paige wasn't surprised that her quote had made it to Spencer's ears. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I didn't know where else to go."

"You came to the right place."

Spencer leaned against Paige's shoulder, and Paige wrapped her arm around Spencer's shoulder, squeezing once.

Over the next hour or so, Spencer unloaded. She told about the subtle changes in Toby ever since he joined the police department, about how those changes grew more pronounced when Spencer decided to come to Stanford, about how they had been kidding themselves when they decided to try to make it work long-distance.

She speculated that it was her fault; she knew that she had changed - and how could she _not_ have, with everything that she and her best friends had been through?

And, all the while, Paige never said a word. She never yawned, she never judged, she never flinched; only occasionally shifted her body as Spencer curled more vulnerably into her.

When there were no more words to say, Spencer just sat in Paige's grasp. Paige let her. When Spencer moved to speak again, Paige looked down, to read her eyes. Spencer closed the distance with a kiss.

It was quick and perfunctory. It wasn't wrong or right. It was just there. Paige would have forgotten about it, but Spencer leaned in again, more purposefully this time, as if she had something to prove.

"Spencer," Paige chided.

"Let me," Spencer whined, in a soft rasp. She reached behind Paige's neck to pull her in. " _Please_."

Paige stood up and took a step away from the bed. "No," she said with authority.

"Paige!" Spencer stood up and walked in front of Paige, annoyed.

"Spencer I know," Paige said impatiently. She walked in a tight circle in the small space between her bed and her desk. "I get it, okay? You need to feel. Something. Anything. I know." Paige shook her head. "But not like this. Not when you're so vulnerable."

"Ugh!" _Vulnerable? Weak?_ Paige had gone too far. "You think you know?" Spencer spat, grabbing her sandals from the floor beside Paige's bed. "You don't know shit!"

Spencer slammed the door behind her, pulling her sandals onto her feet without slowing her brisk pace out of Paige's dorm, back to wallow in her own room.

Paige gave a fleeting thought to chasing after Spencer, but even if she had decided that it was a good idea, she couldn't have done it. She was frozen to the spot. She ran her fingers over her lips that were still tingling from that brief contact. Her head was starting to swim from the repressed memories that the kiss had unleashed. She fell down onto her bed as the memories swirled around in her brain; some stopping and coming into focus for a moment before the carousel started up again. She recalled the smirk on Spencer's face as she stood on the other side of the bench in the locker room, her eyes daring Paige's to take an eyeful of her half-naked, sweaty form. She recalled the pivoting of Spencer's head in the shower as she subtly but unabashedly sized Paige up. She recalled the aggression on the field, both of them letting out pent up tension; neither in a hurry to disentangle when they tumbled into each other during a scrimmage.

These were the dark days. The days that Paige had done her best to forget. The days of confusion and bullying and self-loathing. The days that had long lain buried.

Awakened by a single kiss.

Maybe Paige and Emily weren't the only thing in this universe that was inevitable.

* * *

Paige shook her head to clear it and reached around to find her phone. She fired off a message to Spencer: "Let me know you made it back to your room safe."

The response was quick and to the point. "Fuck you, McCullers."

Three words that Paige knew said a whole lot more.

"Fuck you," not "Fuck off." "Fuck off" would have meant, "I despise you. Get lost" "Fuck you" meant, "I could care less that you're worried. You don't get to worry about my safety right now."

And "McCullers" indicated detached respect: "I don't have to like you, but we have to get along."

So, "Fuck you, McCullers" meant "Leave me alone, for now."

They would be all right. Spencer just needed some space.

Spencer read the reply from Paige: "Whatever, Hastings." It really meant, "Whenever." Paige was letting her know that she would be there, whenever Spencer was ready.

She knew that Paige was right. She was needy and vulnerable, and Paige was trying to keep her from doing something that she would regret. The only thing was, she _wouldn't_ regret it. This wasn't about rebounding from Toby. This was about the universe finally aligning.

Spencer remembered the explanation that Paige had given her about breaking up with Emily. She and Toby were right for a time, and maybe they would end up being together for all time. But, right now, maybe it was Paige and Spencer's time. Maybe this was a necessary leg on the journey to their final destination - wherever that final destination was for them. _For all four of them_ , she thought.

The universe would sort it out. It would just take time.

* * *

Over the next month, Spencer and Paige reverted to the "Hastings"/"McCullers" interactions of their pre-friendship high school days. In contrast to their early days of Stanford, when they rarely saw each other, they seemed to keep running into each other. Spencer didn't know whether it was the universe giving them a gentle shove or, more likely, Paige being Paige and keeping a protective eye on her friends. Their run-ins never happened in any obvious times or places; - Paige didn't just happen to be walking past Spencer's dorm at a time when, she knew, Spencer would be leaving for class, and she didn't show up to jog around the track just as field hockey practice was breaking up. But Paige and Spencer were too much alike. They thought too much alike. It would be easy for her to figure out how to run into Paige, if she wanted to. And it was easy for her to figure out that Paige wanted to run into her. And that Paige would know that Spencer would figure it out. _Message received, McCullers._ Paige was still giving her space, but she was still going to be there for whatever Spencer needed.

So, Spencer decided to end the stalemate, and the two found themselves sitting, with their oversized, plastic dinner trays pushed off to the side, in a crowded campus cafeteria. Spencer chose a very public place, to allay any of Paige's fears that Spencer would try something stupid with her lips again. _So why was Paige bouncing her leg up and down like a meth addict going through withdrawals?_ "Cut it out!" Spencer chided amiably, and she smiled at the expression of shock on Paige's face when she realized that she had been doing it.

"I wouldn't insult you by trying to talk this through with you before I had a chance to process it. And I have. Processed it." Spencer's sentences were choppy; forced.

Paige nodded once, slowly. She was afraid how she would react to whatever it was that Spencer had come up with.

"You're trying to convince yourself that this is about Toby and me," Spencer continued. "Even though you know that it's not. You know that it goes back much further than that. Before Toby. Before Emily." Spencer looked into Paige's eyes, to confirm that she was keeping up. Paige dipped her head to confirm that she was.

"Back then," Spencer sighed, you thought that I was toying with you. Trying to knock you off of your game. Whatever. But you know better than that, now. You've known for some time. Haven't you?"

"Y-yes." Paige would never let Spencer - or anyone - intimidate her on the field. And she was no longer scared of who she was or of who else knew who she was. She had the courage to show up at Emily's door when Emily wanted nothing to do with her. So why was she turning into a puddle of goo over this conversation?

"I've been thinking about what you said. And you're right. But Emily's not the only one who has people orbiting around her. So, yeah, our orbits are aligning right now. And who knows how long we'll be in synch?" Spencer leaned forward in her chair and gazed unflinchingly into Paige's eyes. "Paige. I'm not saying that we're endgame. I'm not saying that we aren't. All I'm saying is that we're _right now_."

Paige sat in stunned silence, but she never dropped her eyes from Spencer's piercing gaze.

"You need time to think this through," Spencer asserted as she centered her tray in front of her. "I get it." She stood up, leaning over the table to give Paige one more thing to process. The kiss was slow and insistent, and Paige felt an exchange of breath as their lips parted.

Spencer picked up her tray and walked away. Paige's eyes followed her all the way to the conveyor belt, and from there to the exit. Spencer paused at the open door and turned around, as Paige knew she would, and smirked when she caught Paige's eyes locked in on her. As she knew they'd be. With a flick of her head, she spun around and disappeared from view.

When Paige could breathe again, she collected herself and her tray and headed back to her room.

* * *

It was a while before Spencer heard from Paige - or even ran into her - again. Spencer was walking up the hallway to her door and saw a figure sitting on the floor next to it, legs bent at the knees, balancing a laptop against her thighs. When Paige looked up and saw Spencer approaching, she folded the laptop and stood up. Spencer walked past her and unlocked the door. "Get in," she rasped, and Paige did, sporting an unmistakable smile that Spencer couldn't see from her position behind Paige. Paige sat down on Spencer's bed, her expression now blank, drumming her fingers against the knees of her jeans. Spencer locked the door.

Paige would never compare making love with Emily to making love with anyone else. It wouldn't be fair to the other person. But it was markedly different with Spencer. With Emily, it was like swimming: Becoming one with the water, being surrounded by it, letting it propel you. With Spencer, it was like field hockey: Jockeying for position, pushing past your opponent, slamming it into the goal. Swimming could almost be relaxing, at times. Field hockey, the way that she and Spencer played it, was war. In the years since she switched exclusively to swimming, she forgot what she ever enjoyed about field hockey. One night with Spencer Hastings ensured that she would never forget again.

* * *

"You've done this before." Paige's statement was actually more of a question.

Spencer moaned something that sounded like, "First Time."

"Really?"

Spencer lifted her head from between Paige's thighs and let out a groan of frustration. "For fuck's sake, McCullers! It's not brain surgery!"

Paige pushed Spencer's head back into position and stopped asking questions.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Paige asked, looking at the top of Spencer's head as it lay peacefully atop Paige's chest.

"Don't," Spencer spat, more sharply than she had intended.

"Don't what?"

"Don't treat me as if I'm made of glass."

"Spencer," Paige pleaded.

"McCullers!" Spencer retorted, sitting up to glare at Paige. Paige raised her palms in front of herself, in surrender. After a bit, Spencer settled back onto Paige's chest, her palm on Paige's breast. "I'm fine, okay? I wanted this. I want you."

"I know, but... my first time..."

"I'm not you, Paige!"

"Jesus, Hastings! Do you have to be so..."

"So what?"

"So... recalcitrant?"

Spencer burst into laughter. "Who whips out... a word... like 'recalcitrant'... in the middle of a fight?" Spencer could barely get the words out through her laughter.

It was contagious. Paige laughed, too, and the tension was broken.

"I know that you have to talk things through, okay?" Spencer was drawing circles around Paige's areola. "I just need to process things. In here." Spencer moved her finger from Paige's breast, momentarily, to tap it against her skull. "I'm okay." She kissed Paige's neck. "I _like_ you." She kissed Paige's neck again, longer and wetter.

Paige relaxed. Turning her head, she kissed Spencer's lips. "I like you, too. I'll be quiet."

Spencer pulled Paige's arm tighter around her. "I just want to lie here with you."

Paige kissed the top of Spencer's head, and they lay there.


	2. A Chaos of Deep Passion

_Spencer felt herself surrendering to Toby's embrace, sinking deeper and deeper into his arms, feeling her senses overdosing on the familiar scent and feel of him. She felt warm and protected - and terrified. She knew how this would end_. She woke up hyperventilating, surprised that her labored breaths hadn't awakened Paige. She rolled over onto her back and pulled Paige's arm from underneath her neck. She knew that this new position would become uncomfortable for Paige, once her arm fell asleep. More than that, she needed some physical separation from Paige at that moment.

Spencer clenched her fists so tight that her trimmed nails left imprints in her palms. Despite the pain, she clenched even tighter. It was the only way that she could keep her fists from pounding against the mattress in frustration. She was livid at herself for having had this dream. Again.

She didn't remember exactly how long she had been having the dreams. She didn't know how she could ever tell Paige about them. About the only thing that she did know was that, sooner or later, Paige would catch on. They knew each other too well.

Spencer wasn't worried that Paige would be worried or threatened by the fact that she had been having dreams about her ex. She was worried because she knew that Paige would know the real reason that she had been dreaming about him. It wasn't that Spencer wanted another go with Toby. It was that she was afraid that Paige wanted another go with Emily. Spencer couldn't bear to let even her subconscious mind go there, so her clever, cruel subconscious had simply switched the players around in her dreams.

In some ways, this thing with Paige felt like the uneasy truce of their field hockey days at Rosewood High. She and Paige had been thrown together by circumstances and were forced to figure out how to get along. Beyond that, Spencer didn't know. Did Paige love her? She wasn't sure. Did she love Paige? She wasn't sure. She knew that they both loved playing together. On and off the field.

And she knew that she couldn't handle any more of those dreams. But they wouldn't go away until she sorted things out with Paige.

* * *

"Let me read something to you."

"Okay," Paige said, closing her book. She had picked up the nervousness in the almost imperceptible tremble in Spencer's voice, and it made her nervous as well.

It was any random Saturday evening, and Spencer and Paige were sitting, as they often did, on the floor of Paige's dorm room with their backs against the bed that Paige's roommate had no use for on the weekends. They were present with each other, but not doing anything together until those six words broke the silence between them.

Paige wasn't surprised to hear the words from Spencer. It was one of Spencer's favorite lead-ins, and Paige certainly didn't mind what it ordinarily led to. Spencer would read some political or social opinion piece just to stir things up. It would lead to a bitter argument and violent screaming match, and, ultimately, to incredible sex, as they worked out their differences between the sheets.

But Paige could tell that it was different this time. Even before they were together, Paige always felt that she had a pretty good grasp of what Spencer was thinking, because, in so many ways, they thought alike. Over the course of the semester, as they progressed from being friends of convenience to lovers, and, finally, fixtures in each other's rooms, Paige had become more and more adept at reading Spencer's feelings. And Spencer's nervousness was a pretty good indication that this was about Emily.

Paige felt a quiver of dread in the pit of her stomach.

Were this to be one of the normal "read something" moments, Paige might have lifted a finger, signaling for Spencer to wait until she finished the paragraph. This time, though, she closed her finance book in her lap right away and turned slightly toward Spencer, signaling her full attention.

Spencer closed her eyes and tightened her lips, and Paige did something that she couldn't have done even a month earlier: She reached for Spencer's hand.

Although this was Spencer's first physical relationship with a woman, she was definitely never shy when it came to public displays of affection with Paige. She was a Hastings, and she would never apologize for or feel the need to hide who she was.

Except to Paige.

Competing with Paige had become ingrained at an almost cellular level into Spencer's essence. In many ways, competition defined their relationship. It certainly defined their sex life. So it took a monumental shift in Spencer's psyche for her to admit – either to Paige or to herself – that she needed the reassurance of Paige's hand in the same way that she would have from Toby's hand - or anybody else's, for that matter. Only as Paige established a precedent and a pattern of allowing herself to surrender to Spencer's comfort and nurture did the switch flip somewhere inside Spencer, giving her the permission to be vulnerable.

She leaned her head on Paige's shoulder, and Paige encircled her with her arms, placing her lips on the top of Spencer's head. Spencer rested there for several seconds and then pushed herself away, ready to Hastings her way through.

" _Evening Star_ ," Spencer announced with a heavy sigh, "by Edgar Allan Poe."

As Spencer read, Paige cringed internally, straightening her body to create a distance from Spencer. The cold moon, her cold smile, surrounded by the planets, her slaves;– it was Emily. It wasn't too far off from the description that Paige had given of Emily when Spencer called her out over their break-up. When Spencer read the part about turning away from the moon to the distant but warmer light of the Evening Star, Paige recognized Spencer. Not the actual Spencer Hastings, but the Spencer Hastings that existed only in that dark corner of Spencer's mind, standing forlorn, dwarfed by the monumental effigy that her mind had erected to represent the way that she feared that Paige perceived Emily.

The problem with dating her ex's best friend, Paige had come to realize, was that Spencer had had a front row seat for Emily's relationship with Paige. Spencer knew what Emily was thinking about the two of them before Paige ever did, and, in many cases, Emily even shared things about Paige with Spencer that she never shared with Paige herself. This insight only served to make Spencer insecure, once she and Paige got together. She knew how much Paige loved Emily. Even when Emily's moon turned a hard, cold face toward her, Paige couldn't keep herself from coming back. And Spencer knew how genuine the thing that Paige and Emily had was, and how different it was for Emily with any of the other women who got pulled into orbit around her.

It didn't matter that Paige had never compared what she had with Spencer to what she'd had with Emily. Spencer, herself, made that unwinnable comparison almost constantly.

"So," Spencer said, closing the book but leaving her finger inside to hold the page. Without moving her head, she glanced at Paige for not even a second before she lowered her head and let her eyes follow her finger as it traced over the raised letters on the cover of the book in her lap.

"So," Paige echoed, knowing that Spencer had more to say and was only waiting for an acknowledgment that Paige had finished processing what she had just heard.

"So, am I just your Evening Star?" Spencer asked, now idly thumbing through the pages of the book, smoothing out dog-eared corners on some of the pages with the nail of her middle finger.

"If, by that you mean…"

"You _know_ what I mean," Spencer said impatiently, letting out a huff as she let her head fall back against the thin mattress of the dorm bed. "Consolation prize. Second place. Second best. Second fiddle. Second…"

"Spencer!" Paige was trying to keep her composure, but she was weary of this. As bad as the circumstances behind her move to California had been, they had given her the opportunity to move on from Emily. But Spencer just kept dredging her memory up.

Part of Paige – a very large part – knew how Spencer was felt. She had spent most of her relationship with Emily thinking that she was out of her league, and wondering when Emily would realize that and move on. She often wondered what it would be like to be the Emily in the relationship – the secure one, the one in control, the one with the upper hand. But, now that she found herself in that situation, she didn't like it.

"Banana," Spencer said weakly, and when Paige shot her a confused look, she clarified, "Second banana," with a faint smile.

Paige opened her mouth to say something, but a single laugh escaped instead. She wasn't sure why, but it had something to do with the number of "Second" examples that Spencer had come up with, and with the fact that she couldn't let it go without saying the last one.

Spencer nudged her shoulder against Paige's, her smile now full, as the emotional weight of the room ebbed slightly. She stood up, with her right hand on her hip, and her left hand, the one closest to Paige, on her forehead. Paige allowed herself a brief stare up Spencer's long, toned legs, enjoying the view that she was afforded by the angle of their relative positions and the skimpy practice shorts that Spencer had on.

Whether it was intentional or not – Paige wasn't even sure how aware Spencer was that she was doing it – Spencer had begun dressing in ways that accentuated the physical features that Paige preferred. Especially those features which she felt could compete with Emily's. Especially when she and Paige were alone, just hanging out casually. Especially on certain days of the month.

Spencer's upraised arm had also lifted her shirt, allowing Paige a distracting glimpse of the curve between Spencer's hips and ribs.

Spencer held the position for several moments before she tossed her head back, smoothing the hand that had been on her forehead through her disheveled hair. "Oh, God. I'm sorry," she said, slowly shaking her head. "I'm being so pathetic right now." Spencer tapped her toes against the floor, trying to hide how much of a struggle it was to hold things together.

Paige hated seeing Spencer like this. Really hated it. It left her feeling swindled; a victim of the old bait-and-switch. _This isn't why you date a Hastings_ , she thought. She had expected someone who could keep up with her and challenge her, not someone who was vanquished by insecurity over the memory of Paige's ex.

Paige was done. She would have to end this, and the sooner the better.

Spencer never saw it coming.

In one swift motion, Paige swept her arm behind Spencer's knees, causing her to tumble back onto the bed with a gasp of surprise. In an instant, Paige was on top of her, grabbing her wrists so tightly that it turned her skin white. Spencer saw the fire in Paige's eyes as she looked down at her like a demon hovering above some helpless soul that she was about to devour alive. _My Ass!_ Spencer thought. She bucked her hips with such force that it knocked Paige onto the floor and, acting purely on instinct, catapulted herself on top of her prey with a feral yell, pinning Paige against the ground with her arms pressing down against Paige's shoulders.

Paige could've given in right then and there and let Spencer have her, but she wasn't sure that she had made her point, yet. After trying in vain to counteract the advantage that Spencer had on her in leverage, getting nothing from her efforts except the Hastings smirk of superiority, Paige relaxed her shoulders and kicked with her legs, sending Spencer into a somersault. Paige opened her eyes in panic when she heard Spencer's body thud against the door.

"Oh, shit! Are you okay?" Paige rolled over, the fastest way to close the distance between the two of them, and reached a concerned hand toward Spencer's head. Spencer swatted her hand away and grabbed her by the shirt, clenching her fists into its material as she pulled Paige in and began kissing her aggressively, grunting like a Viking at dinner. This, Spencer realized, was what she and Paige were about. Emily, Toby, and everyone else was irrelevant. She and Paige were pure, animal attraction. When that was working, nothing and no one else mattered. And, if that only lasted another day, another year, or another minute, so be it.

* * *

When it was over, after they had each, in a fever of unrestrained lust, destroyed the clothes that the other was wearing, after they had finally made it to the bed and worn each other out, emotionally as much as physically, after their breathing and the balance of power between them returned to normal, Paige finally spoke.

"The Evening Star," she said, her voice going up ever so slightly as she formed the question. "That's Venus, right?"

Spencer nodded her weary head against Paige's chest. Her arm was stretched across Paige's body, and she was lazily rubbing the pad of her index finger over the semicolon tattooed on the inside of Paige's wrist, enjoying the way that its roughness felt in contrast to the smooth skin around it.

"And Venus was the goddess of…"

"Love, fertility, sex, seduction," Spencer interrupted, spitting out the words in rapid succession, compelled by the Hastings in her to prove that she knew the answer. As the words tumbled out of her bruised lips, she realized the point that Paige was making. "Oh," she said softly, freezing her finger in midair, an inch or so above the black dot of the semicolon. "Well, you could've just said that," she said with a hint of playful irritation in her tone before she allowed her finger to drop and continue exploring the ink on Paige's wrist.

"Could I have?" Paige challenged. "You really think that anything that I could've said would have gotten through?"

Spencer shrugged, turning her back to Paige and laying her head on top of her own hands. She knew that Paige was right, but she didn't feel like admitting defeat.

"Besides," Paige added, grabbing Spencer's shoulder as she turned toward her, rasping into her ear, "where's the fun in that?"

"You know, McCullers." Spencer rolled over with a smirk, facing Paige. "Venus is also the goddess of victory."

"In your dreams, Hastings."

Spencer laughed, content, at those words. This _was_ her dream; not the recurring Toby nonsense. This was one of those unbelievable flights of fancy that could only happen in dreams, where impossible situations come and go regularly, way too fast for the mind to keep up with them. It was a dream as exhilarating as it was exhausting; as comfortable as it was confusing; as familiar as it was fractured.

"Yeah," she smiled, threading her fingers into Paige's hair. "In my dreams."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, guys. This was my third attempt at writing a second chapter that didn't betray the mood of the first chapter. (I'm sure that you've all read one-shots that were extended by popular demand but would've been better left as one-shots.)
> 
> I was able to retain the theme of lifting titles from poems by Edgar Allan Poe. This chapter's title comes from the poem, "Dreams."


	3. Evil Things, in Robes of Sorrow

Paige's heart raced when she saw the number on her phone. The caller came up as unknown, but it had to be Emily or one of Emily's friends.

The four of them, Emily's crew, had changed phone numbers regularly in high school; - their futile attempt to keep themselves safe. Paige was out of that loop by the time that the latest round of numbers went through. But she recognized the area code, and it told her all that she needed to know.

She knew that it had to be something big for any one of the three to be calling her directly, rather than going through Spencer to get to her.

Paige took a deep breath and closed her eyes, steeling herself for whatever the news was about Emily. (It _had_ to be about Emily.) She pushed talk and offered a tentative hello. All that she heard from the other end was crying, in deep, breathless sobs.

Emily was livid, and there were a thousand things that she wanted to say to Paige, but, in a fit of rage, she called before she had thought it through; before she considered what state she would be in once she was actually on the phone with Paige again.

Paige had never heard Emily cry like that. She had seen Emily's grief and her wrath, but never this. Even on the phone call where Paige ended things with Emily, Emily had held it together, willing herself to delay her breakdown until she was alone, or in the comfort of her friends. The least that she could do, she thought, was honor Paige's request for space. Paige had made it out. Emily was determined not to react in such a way that her pain or Paige's guilt would draw Paige back into the Rosewood drama.

So, there on the phone, as Emily wept inconsolably, Paige was in uncharted territory; powerless, stumped, never having learned how to read Emily's thoughts when Emily was like this.

After several minutes, Paige gently said, "Emily?" hoping to help pull her ex-girlfriend back from the emotional brink.

Emily screamed back her response: "No!" and Paige couldn't tell whether it was desperation or rage that she heard.

After a few more moments of listening to Emily cry, she tried again. "Emily?"

"No!" Emily spat back, and it landed like a punch to the kidney.

So Paige could do nothing but wait it out, as painful as it was for her. For both of them.

When the phone finally went silent, it remained that way for what felt like an eternity. Paige was too afraid of what the response would be if she tried speaking again. She didn't dare move the phone from her ear, lest Emily utter something and she miss it.

Finally, Emily's voice came over the line, composed, low, and spiteful.

"How could you?" she said, and she ended the call.

* * *

Paige was unable to move the phone away from her ear. The three words traveled past her eardrum and down through her throat, where they formed a lump almost too large for her to swallow. The words finally crash-landed in her heart, the weight of them reverberating with its every labored beat.

_How could you_?

Emily could have asked, "How could you do this to me?" - making it personal. This was more serious. Emily's question wasn't, "How could you do this to someone whom you once loved?" but, much worse, "How could you do this to _anyone_?"

How could one human being be so inhumane to another human being?

* * *

Paige was shocked from her thoughts of guilt and self-hatred by the blaring of her phone. It was the ringtone that she had reserved for Spencer - "Girl Power" by the Cheetah Girls - its bombast made all the more obnoxious by the fact that Paige still had the phone pressed right up against her ear. She jerked it away and rejected the call. By rejecting it, rather than letting it ring over to voicemail, Paige was letting Spencer know that she was there; that she hadn't missed the call; that she knew why Spencer was calling, but she wasn't going to talk about it just yet.

Paige looked at her phone and saw two texts that Spencer had sent just before Emily called.

**S_Hasty: You might be hearing from Emily.**

At first, Spencer's thought was to cushion the blow, alerting Paige but not in a way that would send her into panic.

**S_Hasty: It's bad.**

Spencer sent the follow-up, still trying to protect Paige, but having realized that she needed to let Paige know to be prepared for the worst.

The facetime session that preceded those texts was the reason that Spencer had sent them.

* * *

Spencer and the girls still kept in contact on a regular basis, mostly by voice or text, but, occasionally, by Skype or facetime. Like that morning. With Emily.

Emily ended nearly every one of conversations with Spencer with a lighthearted mention of Paige: "Are you being nice to her?" "Is she doing okay?" "Tell her that I asked about her."

This time, as things were winding down, Emily joked, "Well, I can see that Paige is rubbing off on you. You two are even starting to dress alike."

And then the penny dropped, and Emily's face with it.

Spencer picked up on the look of betrayal before she picked up on what was going on. Keying off Emily's statement, she looked down to see how she was dressed.

_The criminal must always make a fatal mistake, because, deep down, the criminal wants to be caught. This desire comes not from a feeling of guilt, but, rather, from a desperate yearning for relief from living under the constant threat of being caught._

Spencer hadn't expected to see – or to be seen by – Emily that day. Even if she had, though, she probably wouldn't have thought twice about the shirt that she was wearing. It was Paige's shirt, or it had been, once. Spencer had laid claim it so long ago that it no longer even occurred to her that she was wearing Paige's clothes.

The worst thing, Spencer suddenly realized, about dating your best friend's ex is – that you're dating your best friend's ex. She knew that Emily had an almost infinite capacity to forgive and to rebuild bridges, and she knew that Emily would have been able to forgive her, had she been upfront about her feelings for Paige at the outset, when they were still just feelings. But to have kept this from Emily; to have dated Paige behind her back; to have spoken to Emily almost every week as if nothing were going on – that was the unpardonable sin.

Spencer had a quick mind. She could have come up with half a dozen excuses for being in Paige's shirt. She could have denied that it even _was_ Paige's shirt, and she and Emily could have laughed at the crazy mix-up.

But she knew that she couldn't keep up the charade forever. And she knew that continuing the deception would only make it much worse when the truth inevitably came out.

And her gut was telling her that it would be less painful for Emily to hear it from her than from Paige.

So, she cracked. She broke down and told Emily everything – from the stolen glances and pre-flirtation in the locker room all those years ago, to the thrill that she felt in the secret part of her heart when she started getting recruited by Stanford - Paige's school, to the break-up with Toby, to the way that the stars finally aligned for her and Paige.

Emily had her phone face-up on the bed, filming the ceiling of her dorm room, throughout Spencer's confession. She couldn't look at Spencer, and she wouldn't let Spencer look at her.

"She still loves you, Em," Spencer said softly in conclusion. That crossed the line. Emily picked up the phone so that Spencer could see her face when she told her to fuck off.

* * *

Paige sat on her bed, stunned into paralysis. She knew that she owed Emily an explanation, but she had no idea how she could even begin – or when Emily would even be ready to hear her apology.

She owed Spencer an explanation, too. She knew that Spencer would be shitting bricks, her latent fears of having to compete with the memory of Emily building by the moment. And, surely enough, Paige's phone pinged with a text from Spencer.

**S_Hasty: Paige?**

**PMac: I need time.**

Paige knew that Spencer would understand why she chose to ask for time, not space. She wasn't pulling away from her, the way that she had pulled away from Emily. There was hope. Paige just needed to figure out how to navigate.

* * *

Paige and Spencer had known, of course, that the day would come when Emily found out their dirty little secret, but neither one of them acknowledged it, to herself or to each other. And because they were firmly committed to denial, they knew that, when Emily did find out, it would be in the worst way possible. Someone would post a picture of the two of them sharing a private moment, or Hanna or Aria would hear some rumor.

Paige didn't know how Emily had found out. She only knew that Spencer knew.

Because they were in denial, Paige and Spencer had never come up with an action plan for this situation. They were like students who showed up for a final exam unprepared, hoping that the right answers will magically come to them. And, like those students, when the test came, they had nothing.

Paige knew that Spencer would want to talk things through and strategize. To Paige, that was the worst possible way to approach it. Paige had never planned her interactions with Emily. That infamous encounter in the pool? Unpremeditated. That surprise kiss in the car? Ad libbed. Calling Emily up on stage at Karaoke night? Winging it. That first kiss in the window seat? Paige couldn't have come up with it if she had tried.

And on those occasions when Paige did go in with a plan, it never went according to plan. It always ended the like the speech that she was planning to deliver on the night that she waited on Emily's porch to beg Emily to take her back. Everything went out the window as soon as she saw Emily.

Paige and Emily had grown even more distant emotionally than they were geographically. Still, Paige knew Emily. What they once had was genuine, after all. Paige knew that Emily couldn't be reached calmly and rationally; - at least not yet. This would have to be handled emotion to emotion. Paige reached for her phone, not knowing what she could possibly say to Emily's voice-mail. She reasoned that just calling was enough, for now. The first step was for Emily to see Paige's number, evidence that Paige was making an attempt to make atonement.

Even though Paige had no intention of leaving a message, she knew that she would have to let the phone ring until it went to voice mail, or until Emily hit "Ignore." Emily would need to see that Paige was serious about talking it through. Calling and hanging up would make it appear that Paige had never intended to talk; that she was just making the gesture to get her name onto Emily's "Missed Calls" list. That was the truth, of course, but she still had to pretend that it wasn't.

Paige was totally unprepared when Emily actually accepted the call. "What do you want?" she asked without anger or sadness. Paige had to concentrate to come up with what, exactly, it was that she heard back in Emily's tone. Eventually, she recognized it as defeat.

"Emily, I never meant for this to happen."

"What does that mean?" Emily's voice was still heavy with defeat. "Huh, Paige? I know that it's what you're supposed to say, but what the fuck does it even mean?"

Paige could hear her voice crack as she replied, the tears welling up in her eyes. "I always saw you and me ending up together, Emily. I knew that it wouldn't be an easy road, but…"

"So, dumping me and fucking my best friend is just what? A couple of bumps on the road to you and me?"

_Whoa… How much did Spencer tell her?_

"Emily, I swear to you…"

"Don't you dare cry, Paige McCullers!" _There was the anger that Paige had been expecting._ "You don't get to fucking cry!"

Paige fell silent, chastened. What could she possibly say? Could she bring up Nate? Alison? Talia? Sara? None of them was the point. Whatever Emily may have done to her, Paige had willfully and with full knowledge of what she was doing gotten into a relationship with Emily's best friend behind her back. The only thing that she could do at this point was admit that she was wrong, and that Emily was right.

"You're right, Emily." (Paige didn't dare try the nickname "Em.") "You're right! What I did was unforgivable." Paige took full responsibility, using the singular pronoun rather than implicating Spencer by saying "we." "And I could tell you what I was going through back then, and why it happened, but none of that changes the fact that what I did was wrong. It was wrong for me to start it behind your back. And it was so much worse for me to let it go on behind your back. As a friend, as an ex, as a _person_ , you didn't deserve that."

"No," Emily said, shaking her head although Paige couldn't see. "I didn't."

"I fucked up, Emily. And I don't know what to do about it."

Paige heard Emily sigh, then sniffle, into the phone. "Do you love her?"

Paige shrugged her shoulders. "I… I honestly don't kn…" Paige let her hand flop down onto her thigh in frustration. "It's complicated," she sighed, bringing that hand back up to rub from her forehead to the back of her head.

"Was it worth it?"

"No," Paige said honestly. "Not the way that I went about it. Not with what I did to you. Emily, if I could go back..." Paige trailed off. She couldn't honestly tell Emily that she wouldn't do it again, and she knew that Emily wouldn't care to hear that she would have done the same thing, only differently.

"I gave you space," Emily chided. "I didn't hear from you for almost a year - and then, this?"

A very large part of Paige really wanted to point out that Emily hadn't just been sitting all alone like a cloistered nun for all of that time, but the part of her that still belonged to Emily wouldn't let her. She didn't want to fight with Emily, and she didn't want to destroy any chance that they might, someday, be able to be friends again. So, she simply repeated, "I was wrong."

"You're damned, fucking right you were," Emily said matter-of-factly.

Paige endured a chilling silence before she dared to ask the million dollar question. "So, what now?"

Emily chuckled once, sardonically.

"I need space."

And then the line went dead.

* * *

Spencer couldn't get her body to stop quivering. Paige had said that she needed time, but Spencer couldn't believe that she would let the night pass without calling. Spencer took a look at her phone. It was 2:30. She pulled the blanket over her head so that she wouldn't wake her roommate when she called.

"Hello?" Paige's voice was sleepy and confused.

"You're sleeping?" Spencer whispered into the phone, incredulous. Under any other circumstances, Paige would have found the raspy whisper incredibly sexy. "How can you sleep?"

"What time is it?"

"Paige, you _know_ that I'm going crazy, here. I can't believe that you didn't call me. I was waiting for you!"

Paige pushed herself up onto one elbow and wiped her face with her hand. "I'm sorry." There she was again, apologizing to - not her girlfriend. Paige didn't know the term for what they were. "Bedmates," not "Soulmates."

"What are we going to do, Paige? We can't let this sit. Emily's going to be stewing over it and getting more and more upset. And I can't blame her!"

"I called her," Paige said without emotion, just delivering the facts.

"What?" Spencer whisper-shouted. "What did you tell her?"

Paige thought back to the conversation and remembered what Emily had said about them sleeping together. "What did _you_ tell her?" she challenged.

"Paige!"

"I told her that I fucked up, okay? I told her that she didn't deserve this. And she asked whether or not I loved you, and I said that it's complicated." Paige paused, giving Spencer the opportunity to object to that, but Spencer offered nothing except her tacit agreement. It _was_ complicated. They had never said anything about love.

"And she asked whether or not it was worth it," Paige continued. "And I said no. Not the way that I handled it, going behind her back."

Spencer sighed. "It wasn't just you, you know."

"No, but I'm the one who's responsible for my own choices."

"Well, that's very existential of you."

Spencer couldn't resist the snark, even in a crisis.

"Is she okay?"

"I guess."

"Are you okay?"

"We may be. Someday. I don't know." For some reason, Paige found herself answering in the plural, even though she knew that Spencer was asking about her personally. It gave Spencer the boldness to ask a follow-up.

"Are _we_ okay?"

"Oh, yes," Paige said, without hesitation. "I fucked up with her – that's got nothing to do with me and you."

" _We_ fucked up with her," Spencer corrected.

"Yeah." Paige blew right past Spencer's attempt to make her feel less guilty and got back to her point. "I mean, this had to come out sooner or later, for better or worse. It should've come out _sooner_ , and it should've been handled _better_ , but it's out there. And, whatever else happens, we don't have to worry about it anymore." Paige cringed when she realized that she had just used Emily's own words in this context.

Spencer sighed deeply. It was a sigh of regret and of sorrow, with only a hint of relief. She suddenly realized that she didn't want to be alone. But it was too late to do anything about it. "When can I see you?" she asked softly, not hiding her neediness.

"You know that you only have to say the word."

"Paige, I didn't mean…"

"I'm on my way. My roommate's gone. I'll come pick you up."

Spencer ended the call and held the phone against her chest, feeling new guilt, because Paige was getting out of bed to come and get her. "Thank you," she whispered to her blanket.

* * *

This was real, now. They could no longer pretend that it was just a fling or a series of hook-ups. Other lives were involved, now. They had gone down this road, and, in doing so, had hurt their loved ones.

Soon, Aria and Hanna would find out. And Toby. If they didn't already know. Spencer suspected that Emily had told the girls. Emily would have cried on their shoulders and screamed about what a bitch Spencer was. Then, she would have given them strict orders not to confront Spencer until she told them that they could.

That's when Spencer realized that she had been so caught up thinking of herself that she had never contacted Emily. She looked at her phone. Even with the time difference, it was still too early in the morning to call Emily at Penn State. But Spencer had to do something. She fired of a text.

**Spence: Emily - I am so sorry for what I did. I want to fix it, but I don't know how.**

Spencer tossed her phone on the bed and began tossing some things into her field hockey travel bag. She was about to head to the bathroom to scrub away the tracks of her tears when her phone rang. She composed herself as she grabbed it and continued toward the bathroom, where she would be able to talk without disturbing her roommate or her neighbors.

Spencer pushed the talk button as she hurried down the hall. "Emily?" she said a little too desperately, and with surprise apparent in her voice.

"How could you do it, Spencer?" It was the same question that she had asked Paige; the question that had been haunting her from the moment that she found out. As with Paige, the question came out numbly; emotionless, defeated.

"Emily," Spencer pleaded, pushing the door to the bathroom open and sitting on a bench just inside. "You have to believe me - this wasn't supposed to happen. We didn't plan for it to happen."

"It didn't just happen, Spencer. You didn't just wake up one day, fuck buddies with my ex." The words cut right to Spencer's core - Emily casually reducing what she and Paige had to just sex.

"I deserved that," she said meekly, not interrupting Emily's progress.

"You _chose_ it. You _chose_ to mess around with Paige. You _chose_ to do it behind my back. That's what I don't get, Spencer. If you didn't think that you were doing anything wrong, then why didn't you tell me? How come it never came up in any of the conversations that we had? Why didn't you say anything any one of those times I asked you about Paige? Or when I asked whether you were seeing someone after Toby?"

"Emily..."

"No, Spencer! Fuck that!" There were tears in Emily's voice. "I was worried about you! I was telling you to hang in there - you'd find someone! And, all that time..."

"Emily, please!" Spencer couldn't bear to hear it out loud again.

"All that time, you were fucking my ex, Spencer!" Emily's words were like a laser: Pointed, accurate, and deadly.

Spencer was a strong person, but she broke down. She wanted to explain - not for her own benefit, but to make Emily feel better - but she realized that there was nothing that she could say. And she realized that the only thing that she could do to make Emily feel better was to sit there and let Emily unleash her venom.

And Emily had a lot more venom to unleash. When she finally wore herself out, Spencer collected herself enough to say, "Emily, please. I'll do anything to make it right."

"Anything?" Emily asked skeptically, continuing before Spencer could reply. "You would leave her?"

" _Anything,_ " Spencer sobbed.

"My God," Emily spat. "You really are pathetic."

The phone call ended, and Spencer put her head in her hands and cried. Just then, the door opened.

When Paige came to get Spencer, she heard voice coming from the bathroom, so she stood by and waited. She didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it was unavoidable. She couldn't just walk away, knowing that Spencer might need some support in her fragile state.

When the door opened, Spencer looked at Paige in panic and fear, realizing that she had switched her phone to speaker because she needed both hands to dry her eyes. "How much did you hear?" she asked desperately. Everything she had was falling apart.

Paige pulled Spencer into her arms and held her, softly repeating "It's okay," into her ear.

When the sobs subsided, Paige took a step away from Spencer, gazing into her eyes to be sure that she was okay. "Let's go," she said. She reached for Spencer's hand, but Spencer backed away.

"Paige, when I told Emily that I would leave you..."

"I understand," Paige said, grabbing Spencer's hand and squeezing it tight.

But Spencer didn't understand. She knew that it wasn't a lie, but it felt like promising to take a bullet for someone. You can swear it and mean it, but if it ever comes to that, there's no telling what you would actually do. Spencer knew that she couldn't leave Paige. But she _would_ leave her, if that's what Emily demanded. But she couldn't choose Emily over Paige.

Paige grunted in frustration when she realized that Spencer was frozen in place, trying to make sense of this paradox. "Spencer," she begged, "it's late. The best thing that we can do tonight is get some rest. We don't have to figure out everything right here and now." The look in Spencer's eyes let Paige know that she wasn't convinced. "We're okay, okay? We're good."

Spencer took a deep and much-needed exhale. She turned to Paige and gave her a long, slow kiss. Lips can lie, but not when they're kissing. She was almost able to smile when they pulled apart. Relieved that Paige was telling the truth, she took Paige's hand and followed her out of the bathroom. "I just have to pick up my things," she said. "Back in my room."

Paige nodded as she let Spencer jog ahead of her to unlock her door. The worst of it was past. The storm wasn't over yet, but they had survived the harshest of what it had to throw at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said at the outset, I don't know Spencer well enough to write her character, and I can already feel the Spencer in this story drifting further and further away from the one whom PLL fans know and love.
> 
> So, although I've unchecked "complete" for this one, I can't promise regular updates. I don't really know where to go with it. I'm writing each chapter as if it's the last, trying to sew everything up in case I can't figure out how to continue. But, hey - no cliffhangers, at least! :)
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read along, and special thanks to the reviewers.
> 
> And, for anyone who may be keeping score, this chapter's title is from Poe's poem, "The Haunted Palace."


	4. Now Doubt, Now Pain

Paige let go of Spencer's hand and her travel bag as she unlocked the door to her dorm room. Once inside, she tossed her keys on top of her desk and set Spencer's bag beside the bed. Spencer sat on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, and looked up at Paige. She looked so angelic and vulnerable that it was harder and harder for Paige to suppress or continue denying what she was feeling.

Paige hated herself for getting like this. Again. She knew what this thing with Spencer was: Two friends far from home and on the heels of break-ups with their long-term soulmates, clinging to each other for support; occasionally working out their physical needs with each other. But Paige had, once again, gotten caught up in it - the need to support the woman whom she was with, to protect her, to be there, whatever she needed. It wasn't that Paige wished to be the other girl in those relationships – the one who could just treat it as a casual thing; the one who could walk away. She just wanted, for once, not to be the one who was always desperately clinging to the one who was walking away.

But she had to be honest with herself. That was who she was: The lioness, thanklessly mothering her cubs, until they outgrew their need for her.

"Paige, we need to talk about..."

"No, we don't."

Spencer stood and put her hands on Paige's chest. "I need to explain what you heard me tell Emily."

"No, you don't." Paige hardened her heart. "I get it," she said, slowly shaking her head. "I know what this is. I would've told Emily the same thing."

Spencer opened her mouth as if to say something, but she couldn't speak. She stepped away from Paige and turned her back to her, not wanting Paige to see how wounded she was by those words. But her body language gave her away - the way that her shoulders slumped, the way that her head lay in her hand.

Paige realized that she had gone too far. She only meant to say that she understood that what she and Spencer had was expendable, but it had come out as if she meant that she would dump Spencer if Emily wanted to take her back.

"Spencer," Paige begged, putting her hand on Spencer's shoulder, but Spencer jerked it away. "You know that I didn't mean it that way. You know that I'm not looking to get back with Emily!"

Spencer spun around and gawked at Paige. "You think _that's_ why I'm upset?"

Paige shrugged her shoulders.

"Paige, I didn't mean what I said to Emily. You _know_ that. I was only saying what she needed to hear."

"Well, how do I know that you're not just saying this to me because it's what I need to hear?" Paige meant it half as a joke, to lighten the tension, but for whatever reason - exhaustion; frustration; something Freudian, where she would rather fuck things up on her own than face rejection - it came out bitter.

Spencer's jaw dropped. She raised her hands and shook her head, telling herself not to say something that would make things worse. "I should just go," she said in defeat. She turned to grab her bag, and then reached for the door.

Paige knew that she had to do something to keep Spencer from leaving. Instinctively, she appealed to her competitive side. "Hastings!"

Spencer's shoulders dropped when she heard that. _That's it, isn't it? It'll never be more than this stupid-shit game to Paige._

Paige saw Spencer's back rise and fall as she fought to hold it together. "Spencer..." she pleaded, drawing out the last syllable.

Spencer turned around, the tears and her words streaming out uncontrollably. "You _know_ how it is with Emily. You _know_ the way that she makes you feel - that you'd rather cut off your arm and give it to her than disappoint her. And you _know_ the way that I feel about you!"

Paige was stunned. She got what Spencer was saying about Emily, but that last statement was totally unexpected. Paige took a deep breath. "Maybe you should tell me, then. How you feel about me."

Spencer collapsed against the door. She dropped to the ground with a grunt of frustration and stared at the ceiling. She couldn't believe that Paige was really going to make her say it out loud. The night was just getting worse and worse. She wished that she had just kept her mouth shut; fucked Paige's brains out and gone to sleep. In the morning, they could go back to pretending that it was just physical.

Spencer felt Paige plop down next to her, and, soon, Paige was taking her hand. She guided Spencer's face downward so that she could see her eyes. "Would it help if I went first?"

Spencer encircled Paige's left arm with her arms and laid her head on Paige's shoulder, nodding her response into it. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath, looking down at Paige's fingers as Paige started to speak.

Paige, too, avoided Spencer's eyes for what she was about to say. "Okay. I guess that I have a tendency to fall in love too quickly and too... desperately." Paige turned her head just slightly towards Spencer, fearing that she would see some expression of shock there. Spencer was still staring stoically at Paige's hands. "Only, I just found that out recently."

Spencer lifted her head from Paige's shoulder and looked in her direction. Paige was still looking straight ahead. Spencer laughed genially. "You only recently found that out?" she said, as if it was common knowledge.

Paige shrugged her shoulders. "I thought it was just with Emily," she explained.

The smile left Spencer's face when she realized the implication of what Paige had said. "Oh." She squared her shoulders toward Paige. "You mean me?"

Paige nodded slowly, lowering her head. Spencer brushed the hair away from Paige's cheek and kissed her there. She put her head back on Paige's shoulder and renewed her grip around Paige's arm, signaling her to continue.

"I know that we're about the struggle. Fighting for dominance on the field, in the classroom... and in bed. And I love that. I really do. I love that you bring out the best in me. It's just that, somewhere along the way, I realized that I didn't just love competing with you. I love being with you. I love..." Paige couldn't finish.

Spencer released a sigh of contentment, and it came out as a purr. "This isn't freaking you out?" Paige asked, finally turning to look at Spencer's reaction. She was surprised to find a tender smile on her face. It wasn't her victory smile. It was something softer, somehow;- almost shy. Paige had seen that smile before, directed toward Toby. As always, it disappeared as soon as Spencer realized that she had been caught.

Paige nudged Spencer with her shoulder. "Okay," she rasped softly. "Your turn."

Spencer exhaled. "Okay," she said, sliding her hand down to hold Paige's, to ground herself. "Well, I guess that I learned something about myself, too. And I also just learned it earlier tonight. When Emily called you my fuck-buddy." Paige recoiled a little at that disclosure. A scowl overtook Spencer's face. "I mean, who is she to judge what you and I have? As if she's the only person whom you could ever fall for; as if there could never be anything real between you and me." Paige stroked Spencer's arm.

"So, yeah," Spencer continued, "I took it. I took everything that she threw at me, because I knew that it was coming from a hurt place, and I know that we did the wrong thing by her. But I never regret what I did with you, Paige. What _we_ did together."

Spencer took a quick glance at Paige's reaction before she squeezed her eyes shut, exhaled, and continued. "Do you remember what you told me about Emily, back when I first came out here to Stanford? That you always do the right thing the wrong way? 'Cause, we may have done this the wrong way, but that doesn't mean that it's not right. Very few things that I've done in my life have felt so right."

Paige smiled and turned to give Spencer a kiss. She sighed as their lips separated, smoothing her hand over Spencer's hair. "So what happens now?"

Spencer smiled seductively. "You take me to bed?"

Paige smirked. "Okay, so what happens after that? Like, tomorrow?"

Spencer sighed. "I guess I need to have a talk with Aria and Hanna."

"Give them your side of the story."

"Exactly."

"And Toby?"

Spencer rolled her eyes. "I'm sure that he knows."

"But don't you think..."

"We're broken up, Paige!"

"Yeah - like me and Emily!"

"No," Spencer said condescendingly, "not like you and Emily. I'm not dating Toby's ex."

"But I am!"

"But you're not his best friend."

"But we _are_ friends..."

"Only through Emily!" Spencer was losing her patience.

"But I'm..."

"Fuck, McCullers! Why do you always have to make things so..." Spencer caught the smirk on Paige's face and realized what Paige was up to. She grabbed Paige by the collar and stood up, dragging Paige up with her. Once they were on their feet, she slammed Paige against the door. "You [kiss] can be so [kiss] fucking [kiss] aggravating!" With that final word, she thrust her thigh between Paige's legs and started grinding into her roughly, still clenching her fists into her collar as she planted a bruising kiss against her lips. When she felt Paige moan helplessly, she shoved her tongue into her mouth, moving one hand to grab her chin and the other to give her left-breast a deep-tissue massage.

Paige was too tired to fight back but too competitive to give in. By the time it was all over and done, both of them were bruised and sore, grateful that their sports seasons were over. They were in no shape to face practice or the weight room for a couple of days.

* * *

"It was never like this with Emily," Paige admitted. "I could never go full-out like that with her, you know what I mean?" Spencer just hummed. "And I promised myself that I'd never bring up Emily in bed, by the way," Paige added sheepishly, after the way that Spencer's responded.

Spencer nestled in closer to Paige, holding her arm tighter, possessively, around Paige's waist. In general, she agreed that it was a good idea not to bring up Emily. But she didn't mind hearing that Emily never got what she was getting from Paige. "It was never like this for me and Emily, either."

Paige sat up a little, her eyebrows raised in shock. She gave Spencer a firm but playful shove once she picked up on the fact that she was just messing with her. Spencer rolled with the shove, landing with her back to Paige. She lifted her hair off of the back of her neck and fanned herself with it a couple of times before she pulled it up into a bun and laid her head on the pillow.

"Mmmm," Paige cooed, "I like it when you put your hair up." She ran the back of her fingernail from the place on Spencer's neck where her hairline ended all the way down her back, under the blanket. When Spencer squirmed, with a giggle, Paige planted a kiss on the back of her neck. It was just supposed to be one; - a kiss good-night - but Paige couldn't stop. As the kisses got longer and more heated, her hips began rolling into Spencer of their own volition.

"Paige," Spencer whined in a half-hearted protest, drawing two syllables out of the name. Paige continued undeterred. Spencer turned around quickly, before Paige's lips could find their favorite spot on Spencer's neck– the one that Paige had nicknamed "the point of no return."

"Paige!" Spencer said sternly, scowling at Paige's dopey grin. She put two fingers on Paige's lips to hold them at bay. Paige parted her lips and started sucking the two fingers lightly. Spencer dipped her shoulders and pleaded, "I haven't gotten any sleep all night!"

"And you're not going to," Paige promised.

And Paige always kept her promises.

* * *

"So, that's pretty much it," Spencer said with a deep sigh. The seconds seemed to drag by as the phone remained silent. "Anyway," she added uncomfortably, "I just wanted to let you hear the whole story. From me."

"Well, thanks," Aria said sincerely. "And we understand."

"Yeah. We don't blame you," Hanna added.

"I do," Spencer said weakly.

"Spencer, Emily and Paige were broken up. You and Toby were broken up. You and Paige weren't cheating."

"I know, Aria, but I should have told Emily from the beginning…"

"Why?" Hanna interrupted. "What good would that have done? Emily would've made you feel guilty, and the whole thing with Paige would've been over before it started. Is that what you want?"

"I don't know." Spencer took a deep breath. "No, that's not what I want for me, but it's what I want for Emily."

"Spencer," Aria said in a calming voice, "We all love Emily, and we all want her to be happy. But, let's be real: If you never got involved Paige, what difference would it have made? It's not as if she and Emily would magically get back together."

"I told Em that I would break up with Paige, if that would fix things," Spencer admitted, still ashamed that she had said it.

"She didn't believe you," Hanna informed her. "And she would never ask you to."

"Emily's just in a bad place right now. Honestly, if things hadn't gone so sour with her and Sara, she probably wouldn't even care that you were dating Paige. She might even be happy for you." Spencer huffed. "Happy" was a bigger leap than she was able to accept.

"Don't worry about Emily," Hanna said. "We'll take care of her. You _take care_ of Paige."

Spencer's shoulders dropped in relief. She was glad that her friends had her back, of course, but it felt even better to know that they were going to make sure that Emily was okay.

"So, what's it like with Paige?" Hanna couldn't help asking. "It must be nice to be with someone all gentle and nurturing for a change."

Spencer couldn't help laughing out loud. "No!" she said definitively. "Paige is anything but gentle. I mean, sometimes, with Toby, I got the feeling that he was treating me like fine China, you know? - As if he was afraid that he would hurt me. But Paige knows me better than that. She's…" Spencer bit her lip and tugged at her hair. "Um, yeah. Not gentle."

"Do you ever miss being with a guy, though?"

"Hanna!" Aria chided. It seemed like a good time to get off of the phone, but she stayed on the line. She didn't want to leave before she was certain that Spencer was okay.

Spencer gave the question some thought. "I think… sometimes, I miss things like... the feeling of rough fingertips on my skin, you know? But, when I'm with Paige, I don't miss anything at all. I mean, physically, we can do everything that a guy can, and then some." Hanna stifled a laugh at that. "But we're not together because of the physical aspect – even though that's what we both thought that it was, at first. This blow-up with Emily made us both realize that it's more than that. We're really connected. I mean, Paige _gets_ me, you know? I can show her sides of myself that no one else has seen. And she sees things in me that no one else sees. Sometimes, she sees things that even I don't even see."

"Well, we're happy for you, Spencer. We really are."

"Thanks, Aria."

"And Emily will be, too. It's just going to take some time."

"Yeah, trust us," Hanna agreed. "Pretty soon, it's going to be the four of us again."

Spencer allowed herself to smile, hoping that time would prove her friends right. For now, the best that she was able to manage was to be happy with the place that she and Paige were in, and happy for Aria and Hanna's support.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's poem: "Eulalie - A Song"


	5. A Peaceful, Soothing Region

"I wish you were coming back to Rosewood with me," Spencer lamented. She liked this new reality between her and Paige. They still loved the struggle; contesting against each other over trivial things, like what route they should take when they walked back from the cafeteria, to things where the stakes were higher, like top and bottom in bed. But, in the new routine that they had gradually settled into, they could be vulnerable with each other as well. If Spencer felt like lamenting the fact that she and Paige were going to be apart over the summer, she could just say so.

Still, she caught Paige off guard when she said it. Paige chuckled at the words, choking a bit on her water. When Spencer rolled her eyes, Paige collected herself. "Oh, you're serious." It was a statement, not a question.

Spencer knew why Paige was dismissive. "She's _fine_ , Paige."

Paige put her palms up and shook her head, smiling in disbelief. "Whatever you say."

"And let's assume, for the sake of argument, that she's not. Would you really make me face her all alone?"

The pout on Spencer's face was pitiable. Or it would have been pitiable, if if hadn't been Spencer and Paige. That wasn't the way that they related to each other. Spencer would never seriously resort to a pout to try to guilt Paige into capitulating. Yes, she could be honest about her feelings, but she would never use vulnerability as a way to win. That would mean conceding the upper-hand to Paige.

"Okay, so you'd rather we face her as a couple?" Paige scoffed.

Spencer reached across the table to take Paige's hand. "I'm telling you, she's fine, Paige." Paige nodded in a condescending, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" kind of way. Spencer pulled her hand away, as upset about the fact that Paige didn't believe her as she was about the condescending look. "Well, anyway, she asked about you, today," Spencer said, unabashedly irritated.

Paige's head snapped back at this news. "Really?"

Spencer and Emily had gotten back to talking over the past couple of months. Their talks were infrequent at first, but, soon, they had eased back into their weekly routine. That part wasn't news to Paige. What shocked her was hearing that Emily had started to talk about her again.

Spencer nodded. "It's been three months. She's had time to deal." Spencer's tone was still heavy with irritation.

Paige should've known Emily well enough to realize that it wouldn't take her long to get over her resentment at Spencer and Paige's relationship.

"Well, that's... good," Paige said, nodding her head a little. "That shows real growth." She raised her water glass, and Spencer clinked hers with it, rolling her eyes at how over the top the gesture was. "So, what did you tell her?"

"That you ask about her all the time." It was the truth.

"Hmm," Paige said, surprised that Spencer had told Emily.

"Yeah. She seemed pleased to hear that."

"Well, good," Paige said, nodding her head. She knew Emily; she knew that it would make her feel good to hear that Paige was thinking about her, as if Paige were pining. "Let her have a victory," she said with a shrug.

Spencer shook her head with a smile. That was just so Paige. "She's seeing someone," Spencer informed her.

"Of course."

"A brunette," Spencer added, knowing that Paige would be wondering. Paige gave a mini-fist-pump at the confirmation of her theory about Emily's dating patterns. "But don't get any ideas!" Spencer joked. According to Paige's theory, there was a second brunette coming, and Paige had always been one of those two brunettes.

Paige just smiled, mouthing the word, "No." Spencer cocked her head and sighed. "She's always going to be there, isn't she?" Before Paige could object, Spencer took hold of her forearm. "No, I get it," she said, nodding. "It's like when Field Hockey played at Penn last fall. Being on that campus, I couldn't help thinking, 'This could've been my life,' you know? I mean, that was my dream - my _only_ dream when it came to college - for so many years. But it's not as if I'm secretly wishing that I could transfer to Penn. That's not my dream anymore. Those dreams of Penn will always be a part of my history, but Penn is no longer an active dream."

"Yeah, I get that," Paige said, nodding her head. "Because if you had gone to Penn, you would never have gotten any of this." Paige stood up and struck a quick pose, smiling cockily.

"Yeah, right," Spencer deadpanned. "I'd be rocking some lucky Quaker's world." Paige laughed along with Spencer. "Who knows?" Spencer continued. "I wouldn't be too far from State College. I may have ended up with Emily." When Paige got silent, Spencer put both her hands on Paige's wrist. "Sorry," she pleaded, lowering her head. "Too far?"

"Oh, no," Paige said genuinely. "I was just trying to imagine the two of you together." Spencer fell back against her seat and gave Paige a look of rebuke, tilting her head. "Not like _that_ ," she said, surprised that Spencer's mind had gone there. "Perv. I mean, I was trying to imagine how you and Em would relate to each other."

"Got it!" Spencer nodded with a click of her tongue.

"Actually, I always kind of saw you with Aria," Paige admitted.

Spencer couldn't help laughing. "Is this something you spent a lot of time thinking about?"

The way that Paige ducked her head gave her away. "Anyway," she said, needing an exit from the road she'd led them down. "I get your point about Penn: You never forget your first."

"You can say it," Spencer said, softly. She looked away, despite herself.

"Say what?"

"Your first _love._ "

Paige smiled, taking Spencer's hand in both of hers. She hadn't actually been thinking "love," but she couldn't really deny that that's what Emily had been for her. So, once again, she backtracked to an earlier point in the conversation, to change the tone. "Well, I just wish that you could train at one of the hockey camps here in California."

Spencer just nodded her head. She didn't feel like getting into this again. Yes, there were field hockey camps in California, but all of the really elite camps were back east, where the sport had more history and tradition. "You could come swim in PA," she breathed out snidely, and it made her point. Paige backed off, realizing that she didn't want to revive that fight, either.

"Well, let's just enjoy the time we have together before you have to go," Paige said instead.

That was it, she realized. That statement summed up their relationship together. They were making the most of their days together, until one of them left.

In the early days of their relationship, they lived under a cloud of impending doom, as if they had to rush everything in before the cloud burst, unleashing its fury and washing their relationship away. Those were torrid, urgent, lust-filled days; days that burned white-hot with passion. After they confronted Emily, they began easing into a more comfortable period, no longer weighed down by the fear that a hasty word, a misunderstanding, or an overture from one of their exes would break them up. They learned to be themselves, and they gave themselves permission to dream about a future together. Their passion shifted: No less heated, it developed into a constant simmer, capable of being stoked into a full-blown blaze with the slightest meaningful touch or suggestive word. And, oh, how they enjoyed stoking the flames.

And, now, they were at a place where they could acknowledge that nothing lasts forever. Death of one or the other - or of the love between them - was inevitable, but such a distant inevitability that it didn't warrant fretting over. Inevitably, the polar ice caps will melt, and half the world will drown; the big one will hit, and California will crumble into oblivion; the Earth will collide with a stray asteroid, setting off another ice age. Everything has an end, but there was no need to be morbid. Just love life in the present.

"Yes," Spencer agreed. "Enjoy these next few days, and look forward to the Last Shout of Summer Ball."

Paige let out a huff of frustration. "You're really going to make me go to that?" Spencer narrowed her eyes, scowling with her entire face. They had already discussed this. Spencer had won that argument, fair and square: Paige would be flying out to Rosewood for the ball.

"I swear, Hastings, as if Rosewood's not creepy enough all by itself… What's this obsession with all the weird, dress-up parties?"

Spencer playfully shoved Paige's shoulder. "I keep forgetting that you're a transplant, not a native. You didn't grow up with the whole Rosewood ethos."

"Thank God," Paige muttered to herself.

Spencer pressed her palms to Paige's and intertwined their fingers, letting their hands fall onto the tablecloth. "You're going to miss me, aren't you?" she half-whined.

Paige released her left hand, cupping Spencer's cheek inside the wisps of hair that were dangling at the side of her face. She leaned in, pulling Spencer in for a quick kiss. As soon as they released, she wanted another taste of Spencer's lips, so she pulled her in again for a longer, harder kiss. The kiss was a satisfactory answer to Spencer's question, but Paige wanted to say it out loud. "Every moment," she intoned in a barely audible rasp.

Spencer was a little breathless from the kissing. Before she could voice her agreement, she leaned across the table for another long, slow kiss. "Mmm. I miss you already." She smoothed her free hand over Paige's hair a couple of times. As they gazed deep into each other's eyes, she threaded a strand of Paige's hair between two fingers, releasing it and repeating the move. Paige smiled in contentment and leaned her head into Spencer's hand. Spencer ran her thumb back and forth over Paige's bottom lip.

Paige pointed her chin in the direction of a booth across the aisle from them. "They're staring," she said, with a totally unembarrassed grin.

Spencer gave her a gentle kiss. "Can you blame them?"

When their lips parted, Paige said softly, "Insanely jealous."

Spencer was shocked for a second before she shook her head resignedly. Of course, Emily had told Paige about Spencer's narcotic-, stress-, and insomnia-induced dream.

That was the thing about dating your best friend's ex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a short but sweet ending to an even shorter story. I wanted to bring it to a close, because I don't really know where I could go from here (The kind of Paily fluff that I usually write doesn't really seem to fit the mood of this story.), and I didn't want to abandon it.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading along. I truly love you all.
> 
> Poem: Dream-Land, EA Poe, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N - So, I wrote this, to be honest, to try to make some sense in my head out of Paige's "I need space" write-off from PLL. Spencer is basically a sounding-board for that.
> 
> I wish that I could do a proper McHastings fic, but I don't really watch the show (I just trawl for Paily scraps.), and Spencer being such a complex character, I couldn't do her justice with the little that I know of her.
> 
> There are a lot of good McHastings fic out there, though. PM me if you want recommendations. . . :)
> 
> Oh - and if anyone cares, the title of this fic is a variation on a line from the poem "Evening Star," by Edgar Allan Poe. 
> 
> Originally posted July 3, 2015, on fanfiction dot net


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